I was a terrible liar when I was a kid. Got better as I got older, but when I was younger, my Mom didn't hesitate to use the wooden spoon when I did something wrong, and my Dad was coerced, on occasion, to use his leather belt on my big butt. Never any fun. I would've hated to see what would've happened if I was a bad kid. In retrospect, I think the primary reason that I did lie is that I feared being punished.
I'm not sure when my lying stopped. I guess most of us might tell a white lie once in a while, and I also will admit that while I might not still lie, there are times, mostly professionally, where I won't tell the whole truth as I know it to be. As a professional communicator, many times a newspaper reporter or a television reporter might be intensely intrusive, and I have made the judgement to not completely answer a reporter's inquiry.
For example, if I were dealing with a crisis situation, perhaps the death of a student on the campus on which I was working, I always erred on the side of the student and the student's family. If a student died because he or she consumed too much alcohol, I might not disclose the cause of death. Or if the coroner beat me to it (which happened more often than not), I would at least try to conceal the blood alcohol content of the deceased. If a family lost a child, I didn't see the need to tell a reporter the BAC. What was the point?
Anyway, I was reading yesterday an article by Kim Painter in USA Today in which Painter tries to illuminate parents as to why teenagers lie. Painter insists that recent research indicates that 80% of teenagers have lied to their parents about something "significant." She goes on to share that 59% of teens admitted to cheating on a test in school and that 29% claimed to have stolen something from a store.
The one thing that bugs me about this article and its supporting survey is that it seems to blur the lines between a lie and withholding information. Now, I have three daughters, so if one of them chooses to NOT tell me about which boys and girls were swapping spit behind the school before sports practice, or which two factions of girls are fighting about something stupid at school, I don't consider that lying to me. With three daughters, I want to avoid as much DRAMA as possible, so if they don't share that with me, I'm fine with that.
If I tell one of them that they are not permitted to go to a party, and they create a ruse in order to get to the party, then it's game-on with the disciplinary branch of Dad. If I ask one of them how she did on a test, or if the homework is done, and they fib to me, I'll take their cell phone, iPod or ban television. Nothing caveman about that.
Another psychologist in that article actually gave me some hope. Jennifer Powell-Lunder said that the three main reasons teens lie are: to protect their friends, to do things you would forbid, and to avoid consequences. The thing that was reassuring is Powell-Lunder said that the biggest reason kids lie is that they really and truly do care about what their parents think, and they don't want to disappoint their parents.
Some pointers (from the experts, not me, because I'm not one): kids tend to be honest if their parents are honest with them; kids tend to lie less when they know the consequences of their actions as opposed to having some unknown punishment awaiting; and catch them when they lie to others, no matter how big a lie it might be.
One pointer from me, which is really hard for me because of my Italian blood - try not to make a big deal about everything.
P.S. Don't forget to tell your daughter that you love her.
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